Leadership boils down to three things

I have read a lot of books on leadership in my short stay on this earth and I have been amazed at how many different things that leaders need to do or be. John Maxwell thinks there are 21 Laws of Leadership, Kouzes and Posner in the Leadership Challenge thinks there are five practices of exemplary leadership. I dunno about you I can barely remember 5 things let alone 21 and so is there a way we can boil leadership down to just the core essentials?

I have been watching Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares lately and seeing learning what he does as a leader. Now some of you are thinking that Gordon Ramsay is that loud mouth pom who drops the F bomb a lot and so he is not to be taken seriously. But what I have noticed when I have been watching Kitchen Nightmares is that he is a great leader. If you have haven’t seen the show, Gordon comes into a restaurant that is usually about to close and has one week to turn it around. The selling point is the conflict but what I am seeing is leadership.

It seems that Gordon Ramsay does three things when he comes into a struggling kitchen and these three things are the things that I think all leaders do.

Connect with people

Communicate clearly

Chart the course

Over the next three days I will be blogging about these three things that all leaders do which will help me clarify my thoughts as I work on them myself.